


The Shadow of Darkness

by Aston (AstonT)



Series: Shadow of Darkness [1]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark Kuroko Tetsuya, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Kirisaki Daiichi Kuroko, Mentioned Generation of Miracles, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Protective Kirisaki Daiichi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-28
Updated: 2017-09-26
Packaged: 2018-12-21 03:13:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11935134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstonT/pseuds/Aston
Summary: There's one thing that nobody can say about Kuroko Tetsuya, and that's that he's willing to take a slight laying down. It's just a pity that his old team seems to have misjudged just how much control they had on him. He looks forward to seeing them crumble the same way they made their opponents crumble all through their final year of middle school.(Also known as the Kirisaki Daiichi AU that literally nobody asked for)





	1. The Beginning of The End

**Author's Note:**

> So, this all began as a series of headcanon posts on my tumblr (mymistakewriting.tumblr.com) thanks to my being obsessed with Alternate Universe ideas of any sort.   
> I've since grown a love of the KiriDaii boys, and that will be shown through how I portray them.   
> I'm not entirely sure how many chapters I'll be making of this or how regular my updates on it will be, but I do plan to finish this one. (As well as adding little one or two-shot drabbles on certain events if I skip over something and you guys want to see it).   
> I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoy writing for it!  
> I'd apologize for any out of character moments, but a. it's an AU, so I'm not too concerned due to my own planning and b. I'm relatively new to this fandom so I haven't brought myself to the level of anxiety to care just yet.   
> Either way, if it bothers you or you have a question as to why I am portraying a character a certain way, feel free to contact me here or on my tumblr and I'll answer any questions you have!

Before the horror that was the match against Meiko in his third year of middle school, Kuroko never would have dreamed of taking up an offer to play for a high school like Kirisaki Daiichi - notorious for their brutal playing style and foul play.

But as he left Meiko's campus after seeing yet another team disbanded because of the _Generation of Miracles_ , he decided he couldn't care less about reputation.

Which is exactly what lead him to the upscale high school to begin his first year of high school.

Club activities wouldn't begin until the end of the first week, which gave Kuroko time to adjust

Of course, he still stayed after if possible to use the gym. Club activities may not start for a few more days, but Kuroko refused to sit idle when he could be working towards his goal.

This is also where he had his first real encounter since being recruited with one of the Kirisaki Daiichi regulars for the basketball team.

As the ball bounced off the backboard and shot right back into his hands, he heard the sound of a bubble popping and looked back to see lilac hair and a wicked grin.

"So you're that shadow from Teiko that Hana-chan told us about."

Kuroko nodded, not bothered enough to question how he'd known.

"What are you working on, then?"

Kuroko eyed the boy for a long moment, taking in the still-wicked looking grin showing as he watched. He took only a moment to decide before he shrugged and spoke up. "I'm just playing with some ideas right now,"

And just like that, Kuroko found himself facing against the lilac haired teen, a small smile bubbling up as he smoothed out a few of his ideas against someone else.

* * *

At the end of an hour, that was exactly what the other team regulars found when they went looking for Hara. 

Hanamiya watched with a smirk playing on his lips, arms crossed as he watched the Phandom trip the taller up a bit in order to get around him. "Seems like you've been learning a bit of a copy move from your old buddy," he remarked once Kuroko had stopped moving.

The others gave their captain a strange look, but Kuroko met his eyes with a dark frown showing. "You'll do good not to compare me to them, nor call them my 'buddies', Hanamiya-kun," he said, pushing his hair out of his eyes briefly.

Hanamiya hummed in agreement, then looked to Hara. "Do you not know how to pay attention to the time, Kazuya? We've been looking for you for nearly ten minutes now only to find you playing with the little shadow,"

Hara just popped another bubble in response to that, grinning happily as he made his way to the group.

Kuroko watched this before he glanced at the time himself and moved to put everything in it's proper place.

They didn't stop him from leaving, and once he was gone, Furuhashi gave Hanamiya a strange look. "You recruited the Miracles' Phantom, did you? Didn't think someone like him would be willing to join a team like ours,"

Hanamiya shrugged. "He seemed perfectly okay with it, even knowing our reputation," he pointed out. "He outright said he won't participate in our foul play, though,"

"No need for him to," Hara pointed out as they headed out themselves, settling into a different conversation as they did.

One thing they all agreed on, though, was that it wasn't going to be boring now that Kuroko was on their team.

* * *

"Well, he can't shoot worth a damn," Yamazaki remarked as he watched Kuroko from where he was standing with the other team regulars. "Skilled as he is in his Misdirection and passes, his shooting leaves a lot to be desired,"

Hanamiya studied the bluenette's from for a moment before he hummed in agreement. "But he can always learn," he mused absently before he went back to watching the others. They hadn't had many people join their basketball team this year, which made his life easier.

Still, though, from what he was witnessing, the only one who had joined that had any potential was Kuroko.

Well, at least he knew the year was going to be interesting.

Once everything was said and done, though, Hanamiya spoke to the others. "Hiroshi, I'm going to ask you to work with Kuroko on his shooting but beside that, he doesn't need any guidance yet. The rest of us will focus on the others,"

"Of course," Yamazaki agreed, immediately moving to where the bluenette was on the court and getting to work on his assignment.

After their practice was over, though, Yamazaki had to admit that teaching the boy to shoot was going to be harder than he'd thought.

"Some of his passes can act as an actual shot," Hara offered to the other with a wide grin. "Why don't you use that and build him up to shooting regularly, let his body adjust to the difference in it easier?"

Yamazaki didn't seem to find any fault in that logic, so he just nodded and filed the advise away for the next time he worked with Kuroko.

And speaking of the bluenette, he passed the group not long after that, his steps hurried in a way they'd yet to see.

None of them tried to call out to him to ask why he was rushing, just observed.

"You certainly know how to recruit strange ones, Hana-chan," Hara remarked once the bluenette was out of their line of vision.

Hanamiya hummed noncommittally before he split ways with the others and headed towards his home, signalling to the others that they should do the same.


	2. Chapter 2

If there was anything that Hanamiya couldn't say about Kuroko, it was that he wasn't a hard worker.

He'd been more than slightly disappointed by the boy's lack of stamina - Kuroko often had to take a small break during their drills and practices to give himself time to reorient himself when the world started fading into shades of muted grey - but the phantom made up for it by how hard he worked at improving.

There were many days where Kuroko would stay back even after practice, or Hanamiya would either find him or receive word from one of the others that the boy was in the gym practicing on a day that they didn't have practice.

But while that was the case, Kuroko had skipped out on their actual practices before, or left midway through one of them after receiving a message or a phone call.

Hanamiya always let him go, a calculating look in his eyes as he observed the bluenette.

It wasn't as if he could be _upset -_ Kuroko worked his ass off on his own following these days, and Hanamiya figured it had to be important for Kuroko to be willing to risk trouble with him for leaving early or not showing up at all. And so, he let it go, keeping a careful eye on the boy's progress as he did.

Of course, that didn't stop him from having one of the other regulars follow him one of the days he left early - to be perfectly fair, it wasn't as if they would get an explanation otherwise, and these days were happening often enough that it was concerning.

However, since it wasn't really everyone's business, Hanamiya kept it between himself and the other regulars - the only ones that spent time around Kuroko off the court.

Not that they got any information by doing this - Hanamiya was endlessly frustrated with the lack of information that Yamazaki had managed to obtain.

It turns out that despite their careful watch over the bluenette, he _could_ still manage to disappear from their sight if he so wished.

And so, when Hara texted him that Kuroko was practicing in the gym the next day, all of them wound up there.

As soon as Hanamiya entered - being the last one, and careful to close the door behind all of them - he spoke. "Where is it you're disappearing off to when you miss practice?"

Kuroko glanced at him, basketball in hand and an unreadable expression on his face.

But oh, his usually carefully emotionless blue eyes were _shining_ with all sorts of emotion that they'd never seen the boy express. The change was exciting and unsettling.

For a second, Hanamiya thought that the boy was going to either not answer or come up with a lie.

Then he passed the ball to Hara and walked towards his bag, digging out a faded notebook before he turned to move to stand in front of Hanamiya.

He said nothing, just pressed the well-loved notebook into the captain's hands and went back to what he was doing when Hara threw the ball back to him.

Silence - aside from the sound of the ball hitting the ground or backboard as Kuroko played around with ideas - lasted as Hanamiya flipped through pages of neat writing and clippings from newspapers.

Not that it really registered in his mind what he was seeing - sure, he'd seen some of these articles in the papers over the past few months, but what did they matter to the bluenette?

It wasn't until he got to the last page - after many blank ones - to see a different handwriting that it registered what he was holding.

His eyes narrowed as he read the little note left behind on the page.

_'Kuroko, you know I'd never hand you something like this if I could handle damage control on my own. But as it stands, you're the better of the two of us for this. The pages I've included are from articles that have been popping up since everyone else changed._

_I won't go into details here, but expect me to call or text if another of these situations pop up - whether in the media or otherwise._

_I can only hope that you're strong enough to pull of what I can't to save these guys. Just leave your old teammates to me until you manage this, then it's up to you if you want to help them or destroy them._

_I'm sorry I can't be of more help to you, but I do wish you the best at your high school, wherever it is you end up._

_-Nijimura'_

Hanamiya frowned as he flipped back to the page with clippings from articles pasted to it - all of them were suicides from middle school students. 

"What's it say, Hana-chan?" Hara asked, watching their captain's grip tighten on the book when it registered just what Kuroko meant when he handed him this in response to being asked where he was off to during his missed practices.

"Why are you cleaning up their mess?" Hanamiya asked, forest green eyes locked onto Kuroko's form. "Don't want them to feel _guilty,_ then?"

Kuroko let the ball drop in surprise at the question before he met Hanamiya's eyes and he shrugged. "Because Nijimura-san asked me to. Why let people die just to get through to a handful of childish idiots?" he responded.

Hanamiya sighed in response, handing the notebook back just as Seto repeated Hara's question. "What's going on?"

"He's been running damage control on his old team in the form of stopping previous opponents from killing themselves - I suppose the mental damages were too bad for them to have the will left to fight." Hanamiya said, glancing at the other regulars with a strange look to his eyes.

Silence fell in the gym for a moment before Hara broke it by popping a bubble, then speaking. "Were you really that rough on them?"

"Me? No." Kuroko said, seeming horrified by the very idea. "It was all I could do to keep up with the others, even if I'd wanted to play along with their games I couldn't have. Nijimura-san and me have been running damage control like this since the middle of the year last year, but it only got this bad in the past while."

No questions were asked about what the other Miracles had done that would push any of their opponents to suicide, they doubted they wanted to know.

Instead, Kuroko put the notebook away, then put everything back in it's proper place in the gym.

Hanamiya watched him before he nodded to himself. "Then what do you want to do when control is handed to you about your old team?" he asked. "Are you hoping to save them, too?"

Kuroko paused in his movement for a moment before he threw a knowing smile over his shoulder at Hanamiya - an expression that surprised them, but faded quickly. " _Save_ them? No, I don't think so. The only one of them worth saving is Midorima-kun. I might extend some effort for him, but the others aren't worth it."

Hanamiya's eyes lit up at that and he nodded. "I think we can manage to work with that," he remarked, sharing looks with the others. "We'll start joining you on days where you're practicing on your own, see what we can't do with your skills. And teach you to shoot, as well."

Kuroko hummed his agreement as he shouldered his bag.

When they split ways that day, his team had a new understanding of him, and Kuroko felt lighter than he had since he'd began doing damage control like this.

He only hoped that meant things were about to get better.


	3. Chapter 3

Not much changed after the regulars found out that Kuroko was helping to prevent suicides - all former opponents of the Generation of Miracles.

They kept a closer eye on him, and did all they could to help out - including Hanamiya stealing Kuroko's phone long enough to get Nijimura's number from it to text him with little tidbits of information and plans.

Eventually, it got to the point that Nijimura texted Hanamiya when a situation came up instead of Kuroko - it got the message to the blue haired phantom quicker, too.

The team was rather surprised the first handful of times Hanamiya glanced at his phone in the middle of practice only to tell Kuroko he was done for the day, to get going while forwarding the message to him.

Only the regulars understood what was going on, and they weren't offering information to the others despite the foul attitudes.

But with that change came problems.

Kuroko had been careful not to let anyone else know he was having issues, but when Hara showed up to work with him one day after school, it was to see bruises blossoming on pale skin and he immediately forgot about their practice and set into questioning Kuroko.

It had taken almost a whole hour to get him to let it slip that a couple of the others on the team had done it - Hara still didn't get names.

Once he'd gotten what information he could, he settled into a short practice with the Phantom.

As soon as they'd split ways, though, he'd been quick to send the information along to the other regulars.

And so, the very next practice started with Hanamiya making everyone stay put where they were near the equipment.

"Now, we're going to do this one way or the other. Those who have a problem with Kuroko leaving early every now and again, make yourselves known now," Hanamiya said, his tone icy and promising pain.

Nobody moved, though a few people did twitch as Hanamiya's eyes passed over them.

Hara stood by Kuroko's side, ignoring the unamused look the phantom was giving.

When nobody spoke up or moved, Hanamiya continued. "I don't know who got it in their heads that they could physically harm another of our team, but I will find out and when I do, you're off the team and the information is going straight to the principal." he said shortly. "We don't attack one another,"

"...who told?"

The mumble caught Hanamiya's attention and a dangerous smirk spread as he motioned for the person to gather their stuff and leave. "Thought so. _Kazuya_ told me after he found Kuroko with bruises."

Kuroko kept a carefully blank mask, but Hanamiya could see the annoyance in his eyes easily.

Practice after that was eventful - Kuroko avoided everyone as soon as he could do so and get away with it, working on his own ideas.

* * *

The incident didn't get brought up again, but it effectively marked Kuroko as off-limits. 

Thankfully, also following that, the calls to leave early stopped coming too, becoming spread thin before dying off entirely.

During one of his individual practices, Hanamiya's phone went off with a message and Kuroko's eye twitched slightly as he waited for news.

Hanamiya read the message before he spoke. "If there's any more pop up, it's handled without you. Season's starting soon, and he wants you to focus on that,"

Kuroko hummed, and they immediately got back to work without another word passing between them.

Of course, with that distraction gone, there was also the fact that Kuroko got much more serious about learning new passes and tricks.

By the time they had their first practice game lined up, Kuroko was confident that he'd be able to play easily with the others - even though he'd prefer to not participate in foul plays, he could still help the others set them up if need be.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this chapter is so short!   
> On a side note, I've published another Kuroko's Basketball story called Hyacinths To Ashes  
> If you like any of my stories and would like to request headcanons or a different story, feel free to find me on tumblr and leave me a message or ask about it!  
> Tumblr: https://mymistakewriting.tumblr.com/

That first practice game is also the first time that any of the Kirisaki Daiichi members see Kuroko's temper.

It had been fine, he'd only seemed slightly annoyed going into the game - to be fair, Hanamiya was having a blast laughing at his annoyance from having been lifted by the international student, Papa - but it had changed quickly between the taunts and the minor foul play against them.

Hanamiya didn't expect him to actually fire off a pass that could break someone's arm, though, and that's exactly why he was staring after the ball in horror as it went down the court - that was _way_ too strong, what was he doing?! Was it just a mistake?

But when it hit Papa instead of Hara, Hanamiya became more confused than he had been, though it did become calculating when he looked over as they got Papa off the court and subbed out only to see Kuroko looking nonplussed by the entire thing.

Still, he only patted Kuroko's shoulder, deciding to save the talk for after the opposing team had left.

And once they had, his tone was amused. "I thought you said when you joined you weren't going to participate in foul play,"

Kuroko shrugged. "He deserved it," he remarked. "I've no problem hurting someone if they deserve it, Hanamiya-kun,"

Hanamiya hummed in agreement, not bothered enough to argue. "Just keep that in mind during games, then. Could be useful."

Kuroko nodded, then disappeared to the locker room to get a shower and get changed.

Once he was gone, Hara shared a look with the others. "...I'm glad he told me to stand off the mark, because that pass would've caused me a lot of damage,"

Hanamiya frowned slightly. "We need to train him a bit in the foul play area, and maybe work with him on finding a way he can help with the Spider's Web formation," he offered. "Between all of us, we might just be able to teach him something worthwhile."

Nobody had any arguments, so they gathered their things and headed towards the locker rooms themselves.

The incident was never brought back up between them, but it stayed firmly in their minds.


End file.
